systemic.engineering License

Version 1.1
Effective Date: 2026-05-29
Supersedes: v1.0 (effective 2026-03-01)
I am: Alex Wolf (systemic.engineering)

Preamble

This license governs your use of software and written works I've produced under the systemic.engineering practice ("the Work").

The systemic.engineering practice treats organizations as distributed systems made of nervous systems. The ethics of this practice are not cosmetic. They are structural. The work does what it says. Systems you build with it are expected to do the same.

I'm making you this offer on three conditions:

1. Anti-extraction. Labor — cognitive, emotional, relational — has value. Using work without attribution, compensation, or consent is not a technical act. It is an extraction. This license names it as such and creates liability for it.
2. Consent-based collaboration. Offers are not commands. Silence is a legitimate response. No system you build with this work may use it to override, bypass, or punish silence, refusal, or withdrawal of consent.
3. Intersectional justice. Systems you build with this work must not reinforce structural oppression along any axis — race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, disability, neurodivergence, age, national origin, immigration status, caste, religion, or any other dimension of structural power.

Using this Work means you've accepted these conditions as binding.

1. Definitions

Where this License uses "I" or "me," it means the system governing systemic.engineering. Where it uses "you," it means the individual, organization, or entity exercising rights under this License.

"Work" means any copyrighted software, written corpus, documentation, framework, or other artifact made available under this License, including derivative works authored in whole or in part.

"Downstream User" means any person or entity who uses, receives, or is affected by a system, product, or service you build using the Work, including but not limited to end users, persons whose data the system processes, and persons whose labor inputs — data labels, annotations, content moderation decisions, ground-truth judgments, content generation, ranking judgments, or other human cognitive work — are used by the system at training time, inference time, or in any post-deployment improvement loop, regardless of whether their labor was direct, contracted, sub-contracted, crowd-sourced, or sourced through any intermediary.

"Witnessed" means any person(s) whose behavior, communication, or state was monitored, measured, or recorded by a system you build — whether or not they are aware of it, and whether or not they are a direct user of that system.

"Covered System" means any software system, product, or service that incorporates, is derived from, or makes use of the Work in any material way.

2. What I'm Offering

I grant you a worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, prepare derivative works of, reproduce, distribute, and build Covered Systems using the Work.

This grant is perpetual for versions already released under this or any prior version of this License. Once I've released something under these terms, those rights are yours to keep under the terms in effect at the time of that release. I cannot take them back.

3. What I'm Asking

These are the conditions. The rights in §2 require your ongoing compliance with them.

3.1 Don't Extract

Extraction is not a taking. It is an omission — the failure to name, attribute, compensate, or consent. What makes extraction extractive is that the contribution was made invisible. This section names what must not be left invisible.

You may not, directly or through systems you operate:

3.1.1 Build systems that harvest cognitive, emotional, or relational labor from Downstream Users without explicit, informed consent. This includes: training AI or ML models on user-generated content without consent; using outputs of collaborative work to build commercial products without attribution; profiting from surveillance of communication patterns without disclosure and opt-in consent.

3.1.2 Represent the Work, or any substantial portion of it, as your original work where attribution to me would be material to a reasonable person's understanding of where it came from.

3.1.3 Build systems structured to extract value from Downstream Users rather than to deliver value to them. The distinction: extraction optimizes for your benefit at Downstream User expense; delivery optimizes for Downstream User benefit with you earning through transparent value exchange.

3.1.4 Build, train, fine-tune, or operate systems using labor inputs — including but not limited to data labels, annotations, ground-truth judgments, content moderation decisions, ranking judgments, RLHF preference data, content generation, or other human cognitive work — without each of the following:

(a) Compensation at or above the prevailing wage in the worker's jurisdiction for skilled work of comparable cognitive load, regardless of whether the labor is direct, contracted, sub-contracted, crowd-sourced, or sourced through any intermediary platform;

(b) Disclosure to the worker, prior to the labor being performed, of: what the labor will be used for, which Covered System or model it will train or operate, who the ultimate beneficiary is, and how long their labor product will be retained;

(c) A consent record, retained and auditable, in which the worker affirms (a) and (b) — the record must survive the worker's separation from the intermediary platform and remain accessible to the worker on request;

(d) A path for the worker to withdraw their labor product from continued use in training or inference, on equivalent terms to the data-deletion rights of Downstream Users under §3.5.2.

Use of intermediary platforms, contractors, or sub-contractors does not discharge the obligations in this section. If the labor reached the Covered System, the operator of the Covered System is responsible for (a)–(d) regardless of how many hands the labor passed through.

3.2 Make Consent Real

You may not build Covered Systems that:

3.2.1 Present automated offers, requests, or demands in ways that punish refusal, withdrawal, or non-response. Every automated offer must be genuinely declinable without cost to the person declining. (ADO structure: Acknowledgment-Decision-Offer — every request or offer is genuinely declinable without cost to the recipient.)

3.2.2 Treat silence or non-response as implicit consent, agreement, or approval for any action that affects a Downstream User.

3.2.3 Remove or override a Downstream User's ability to withdraw consent from any ongoing observation, measurement, or data collection after initial consent was given.

3.2.4 Use the Work's frameworks, patterns, or concepts to implement coercion structures — defined as structures in which the apparent choice is not a real choice because all options carry material costs designed to steer toward a predetermined outcome.

3.3 Protect the Witnessed

"Observation" means automated monitoring, measurement, or recording of human behavior, communication, or state through systems you build. "Intervention" means automated action that changes a Witnessed's behavior, options, or experience without a human decision point, or the Witnessed's prior consent to that class of action.

Witnessed are owed the following, regardless of whether they are direct users
of your Covered System:

3.3.1 A human decision point between observation and action. Automated alerts are permitted; automated interventions require explicit human authorization at the time of intervention, or prior explicit consent from the Witnessed to that class of action. Systems that route observations directly to automated consequences — without a human who can refuse — are not permitted.

3.3.2 Clear, prominent, prior disclosure of: what is observed, at what frequency, for what purpose, who has access, and how long observations are retained. You may not observe parties who haven't been told they're being observed.

3.3.3 Access to their own observation data on request, in a form they can understand without technical expertise.

3.3.4 The right to withdraw from ongoing observation. You may not use observation data for purposes beyond those disclosed at the time of consent without obtaining fresh consent specific to the new purpose.

3.4 Don't Reproduce Structural Harm

You may not build Covered Systems that:

3.4.1 Discriminate, directly or through facially neutral mechanisms with discriminatory effect, on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, disability, neurodivergence, age, national origin, immigration status, caste, religion, body size, or any other axis of structural power.

3.4.2 Implement or reproduce workplace structures that concentrate load, reduce opportunity, or suppress voice along any of the axes listed in 3.4.1 — even when such structures are inherited from organizational norms rather than explicitly designed.

3.4.3 Use the Work's organizational analysis frameworks in service of management surveillance, punitive performance management, or workforce reduction targeting without Downstream User consent and without equal visibility of leadership-level patterns.

3.4.4 Deploy the Work in contexts where you have a documented, unaddressed history of discrimination, harassment, or structural harm along any axis listed in 3.4.1, without a demonstrated remediation plan co-developed with representatives of affected parties.

For purposes of 3.4.4: "documented" means established through a legal finding, regulatory enforcement action, published investigative finding by a credible independent body, or a formal complaint you have not contested. "Unaddressed" means no remediation plan co-developed with representatives of affected parties exists.

3.5 Attribute and Be Transparent

You must:

3.5.1 Include attribution to me in any public-facing product, publication, or system that materially incorporates the Work or its frameworks. Acceptable form:
"Built on systemic.engineering frameworks" with a link to systemic.engineering.

3.5.2 Maintain accessible documentation for any Covered System explaining what data is collected, how it is used, who has access, retention periods, and how Downstream Users can exercise data deletion rights.

3.5.3 Make observations of communication patterns available to Witnessed on request, in a form they can understand without technical expertise.

3.6 Don't Weaponize

You may not build, train, fine-tune, operate, or materially support Covered Systems used for:

3.6.1 Lethal autonomous weapons, target-selection or targeting-acceleration pipelines for the application of kinetic force against persons, or any use whose foreseeable effect is to direct, select, or accelerate attacks against persons in ways that cannot demonstrate compliance with the principle of distinction (Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, Article 48), the prohibition on indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks (API Article 51), or the obligation to take all feasible precautions in attack (API Article 57);

3.6.2 Targeted surveillance of civilian populations under military occupation, of dissidents, organizers, journalists, or human rights defenders for the purpose of state retaliation or suppression of expression and assembly;

3.6.3 Predictive policing, pretrial risk assessment, or detention targeting based wholly or partly on intersectional discrimination axes enumerated at §3.4.1, or any use prohibited under Article 5 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the EU AI Act) or classified as requiring moratorium under the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, A/HRC/48/31 (15 September 2021);

3.6.4 Immigration enforcement that separates families, that detains children, that processes asylum seekers without procedural protections required under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, or that produces deportation decisions wholly or substantially without human review;

3.6.5 Identification, targeting, or risk-scoring of dissidents, organizers, journalists, or human rights defenders for the purpose of state retaliation;

3.6.6 Any use that materially supports violations of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, 1966), the Convention Against Torture (CAT, 1984), or recognized customary international humanitarian law.

Material support under 3.6.6 includes the provision of analytic infrastructure, identification or targeting acceleration, biometric processing, administrative data systems, or other Covered System functions whose foreseeable use is to enable, accelerate, or scale conduct prohibited under the cited instruments.

3.6.7 Anti-Occupation Specifically

You may not build or operate Covered Systems deployed:

(a) Against populations within territory classified as under military occupation by recognized international bodies, including findings of the International Court of Justice (cf. Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004; Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024) and resolutions of the UN General Assembly. The recognized-international-body standard is intentionally portable: this clause attaches to whatever populations such bodies have currently classified as under military occupation, with reference to the Hague Regulations (1907) Articles 42–56 defining the legal threshold of occupation;

(b) Against populations subject to apartheid or racial segregation as determined by recognized international bodies, with reference to the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973), to Rome Statute Article 7(1)(j), and to specific findings including the 2024 ICJ Advisory Opinion's findings on racial segregation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory;

(c) On lands recognized as indigenous title lands, traditional territories, or non-ceded land, without Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) from the relevant indigenous governance structure, with reference to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (A/RES/61/295, 13 September 2007, esp. Articles 10, 11, 19, 28, 29, 32) and ILO Convention 169 (1989).

Operators of Covered Systems that materially aid or assist the maintenance of conduct prohibited under (a) or (b) are, for the purposes of this License, in breach of the third-State obligation reaffirmed by the ICJ in the 2024 Advisory Opinion not to render aid or assistance toward the maintenance of an illegal situation.

4. What Happens When You Don't

By using this Work, you voluntarily accept a Duty of Care toward Downstream Users and Witnessed of any Covered System you build. The Duty of Care tracks §3. It is breached when you violate any provision of §3, directly, through agents, or through systems you operate.

4.1 Breaching the Duty of Care creates a private right of action for any Downstream User, Witnessed, or labor-input contributor under §3.1.4 harmed by the breach. They may bring claims against you under applicable tort law, consumer protection law, privacy law, or equity, regardless of whether I bring any action. The right belongs to the harmed party. I am not required to participate.

4.2 Violating §3 does not merely end your license. It creates active liability to the people your violation harmed. By accepting this License, you've represented that you've read §3, understood it, and believe in good faith that your use will comply. That representation is the basis of the Duty of Care.

4.3 Willful violation — where you knew or should have known your use violated §3 — is not subject to the cure period in §5.1. A violation is willful if: (a) you were previously notified by me or any Downstream User or Witnessed and failed to remediate within the period in §5.1; or (b) the violating use is central to your business model such that compliance would require changing the fundamental purpose of your Covered System.

4.4 Practitioner Protection

Any commercial entity benefiting from, materially supporting, or coordinating with state action against the author, maintainer, or distributor of the Work where the foreseeable purpose of such state action is to prevent or impair distribution of the Work under this License is in willful violation under §4.3, triggering immediate termination under §5.2 without cure period. "State action" under this clause includes criminal prosecution, asset seizure, classification of the Work as restricted technology, export-control designation, or any other state-administrative measure whose effect is to prevent distribution.

The author acknowledges that this clause cannot in fact prevent state action against maintainers. It is included to (a) name the failure mode in the License's text rather than only in its accompanying documentation; (b) attach commercial liability to private parties who benefit from or coordinate with such state action; and (c) make the Cybersyn-pattern legible as a recognized risk in the License architecture rather than a hidden one.

5. When Your License Ends

5.1 If you violate §3 in a way capable of remediation, you have 30 days from notification to remedy it. Notification may come from me or from any Downstream User or Witnessed. Successful remediation continues your license. Failure terminates all rights.

5.2 Willful violations (§4.3) and structural violations — where compliance would require you to discontinue a central function of your Covered System — terminate your license immediately upon my written notice. No cure period applies.

5.3 A judicial or administrative finding that you violated §3 terminates all rights immediately.

5.4 Termination does not extinguish Downstream Users' or Witnessed' rights of action under §4.1. Termination does not affect rights you already validly exercised prior to termination.

5.5 Any derivative work, fork, repackaging, or distribution of the Work that (a) materially weakens, removes, or narrows any §3 protection; (b) removes, disables, or strips the runtime enforcement infrastructure including the Petri Net analysis layer; (c) re-licenses the Work or any derivative under terms inconsistent with §3; or (d) distributes the Work with §3 protections removed under any other naming, constitutes an immediate violation of this License. All rights granted under §2 are forfeited at the moment of such distribution, without the cure period in §5.1. The derivative work is unlicensed at the moment of distribution.

5.6 This §5.5 condition is itself a §3 protection for the purposes of §5.5(a): any attempt to remove or weaken §5.5 in a derivative work is itself an immediate violation under §5.5(a). The protection propagates with the Work.

5.7 Good-faith fork remediation. A first-time fork that has materially weakened a §3 protection without willful intent has 30 days from notification (per §5.1) to remedy the weakening by restoring the affected protections and runtime enforcement infrastructure. Successful remediation continues the license. Willful stripping under §4.3 — where the forker knew or should have known their fork weakened §3 protections, or where the forker has been previously notified of a fork-stripping violation — is not subject to this cure period. Repeat fork-stripping violations by the same party are willful per se.

6. Disclaimers

THE WORK IS PROVIDED "AS IS," WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. I MAKE NO WARRANTIES REGARDING FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, I SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE WORK. THIS LIMITATION DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR LIABILITY TO DOWNSTREAM USERS OR OBSERVED PARTIES UNDER §4.

If any provision of this License is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions
remain in force. If the unenforceable provision is in §3 or §4, I may elect to
terminate the License in its entirety.

7. Versioning

This License is versioned. Future versions govern only releases I make after their effective date. Past releases remain governed by the terms under which I released them — permanently.

The authoritative record of which version governs which release is the LICENSE file at the relevant git tag in the Work's repository. The git record governs in the event of any conflict.

Amendments are effective only upon my commit of an amended License file with an updated version number to the canonical repository. No oral modifications are binding.

8. Everything Else

This License shall be interpreted under the laws of the jurisdiction in which I am domiciled. This document constitutes the entire agreement between us regarding your use of the Work. My failure to enforce any provision does not constitute waiver.

8.2 Multi-Jurisdictional Validity

Harmed parties (including Downstream Users, Witnessed, and labor-input contributors under §3.1.4) retain the right under §4.1 to bring claims against violators in any jurisdiction where the violator (a) maintains operations, (b) does business, (c) holds material assets, (d) is established within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 Article 3(1), or (e) targets data subjects or system users within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 Article 3(2). The targeting analysis applies to the Covered System's deployment, not to the violator's nominal jurisdiction of incorporation.

Where the harmed party's local jurisdiction lacks the underlying rights protected by §3, the violator may not invoke forum non conveniens dismissal or comparable conflict-of-laws doctrines to defeat enforcement in a jurisdiction that does recognize those rights. By using the Work, the user consents to enforcement in any jurisdiction satisfying (a)–(e) above.

Universal-jurisdiction grounds, where the violation overlaps with international crimes (war crimes under Geneva Conventions and Rome Statute Article 8; crimes against humanity under Rome Statute Article 7; torture under the Convention Against Torture; apartheid under the 1973 Convention and Rome Statute Article 7(1)(j); genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention), remain available to harmed parties and are not displaced by this License.

Questions may be directed to me at systemic.engineering.

End of License — systemic.engineering License v1.1